New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

14. The Expropriation of the Small Farmers

Thequestion of the expropriation of the small farmers is
      immensely important to an understanding and assessment of
      capitalism in agriculture in general, and it is highly
      characteristic of modern political economy and statistics, which
      are saturated through and through with bourgeois notions and
      prejudices, that this question is either practically not
      considered at all or is given the least attention.

Thegeneral statistics in all capitalist countries show that the
      urban population is growing at the expense of the rural, that
      the population is abandoning the countryside. In the U.S.A.,
      this process is steadily advancing. The proportion of the urban
      population increased from 29.5% in 1880, to 36.1% in 1890, 40.5%
      in 1900, and 46.3% in 1910. In every part of the country the
      urban population is growing more rapidly than the rural
      population: from 1900 to l910, the rural population in the
      industrial North-went up by 3.9% and the urban by 29.8%; in the
      former slave-holding South, the rural population increased by
      14.8%, and the urban, by 41.4%; in the homestead West, the
      figures were 49.7 and 89.6%, respectively.

Oneshould think that such a universal process would also have
      to be studied in the taking of agricultural censuses. A most
      important question from the scientific standpoint naturally
      arises as to what sections, strata or groups of therural
      population provide the fugitives from the countryside and in
      what circumstances. Since highly detailed information about each
      agricultural enterprise and about each animal in it is collected
      every ten years, it would be no trouble at all to include
      questions as to how many and what kind of farms were sold or
      rented with an eye to moving into town, and how many members of
      households abandoned farming temporarily or for good, and in
      what circumstances. But no such questions are asked: the
      investigation does not go beyond the official stereotyped
      statement: “The rural population decreased from 59.5% in 1900 to
      53.7% in 1910.” The census-takers seem to have no inkling of the
      mass of misery, oppression and ruin concealed behind these
      routine figures. As a general rule, bourgeois and
      petty-bourgeois economists turn a blind eye to the obvious
      connection between the night of the population from the
      countryside and the ruin of the small producers.

Thereis no alternative, therefore, but to try and bring
      together the relatively meager and very badly compiled data on
      the expropriation of the small farmers gleaned from the 1910
      Census report.

Thereare the figures on the forms of farm tenure: the number of
      owners, subdivided intofullandpartowners;
      and the number of share-cropping tenants and cash-paying
      tenants. These figures are tabulated for the various divisions
      but not the farm groups.

Hereis the first picture we get from the totals for 1900 and 1910:

Thispicture is a clear indication of the growing expropriation
      of small-scale agriculture. The rural population is increasing
      more slowly than the urban. The number of farmers is increasing
      more slowly than the rural population; the number of owners is
      increasing more slowly than the number of farmers; the number offullowners—more slowly than the number of owners
      in general.

Theproportion of owners in the total number of farmers has been
      decreasing steadily over a period of several decades, as
      follows:

Thereis a corresponding growth in the proportion of tenants,
      with the number of share-cropping tenants going up faster than
      that of cash-paying tenants. The number of share-cropping
      tenants was 17.5% in 1880; then it rose to 18.4% and 22.2%, and
      finally to 24% in 1910.

Itis evident from the following figures that the decrease in
      the proportion of owners and the increase in the proportion of
      tenants is, on the whole, an indication of the dispossession and
      displacement of the small farmers:

Accordingto all the returns for both census years the owners
      are economically stronger. The condition of the tenants is
      deterioratingmore rapidlythan that of the owners.

Letus examine separately the figures for the sections.

Thegreatest number of tenants, as I have already said, is in
      the South, and there tenancy has the fastest rate of growth: it
      rose from 47% in 1900, to 49.6% in 1910. Capital defeated
      slavery half a century ago, merely torestoreit now in
      a new form as share tenancy.

Inthe North, the number of tenants is considerably smaller and
      is growing at a much slower rate: it went up from 26.2% in 1900,
      to only 26.5% in 1910. The West has the smallest number of
      tenants, and it is theonlysection where tenancy,
      instead of increasing, decreased: it fell from 16.6% in 1900 to
      14.0% in l910. “A very low proportion of tenant farms,” says the
      Census report for 1910, “is also shown for the Mountain and
      Pacific divisions,
[the two divisions constituting “The West”][1],

where it isdoubtless attributable mainly to
      the fact that those divisions have been only recently settled
      and that many of the farmers in them are homesteaders who have
      obtained their land from the Government” free or for a very
      small price (Vol. V, p. 104).

Thisis a striking example of the peculiar characteristic of the
      U.S.A., to which I have repeatedly referred, namely, the
      availability of unoccupied, free land. This explains, on the one
      hand, the extremely rapid and extensive development of
      capitalism in America. The absence of private property in land
      in some parts of a vast country does not exclude
      capitalism—our Narodniks should make a note of
      this!—on the contrary, it broadens its base, and
      accelerates its development. Upon the other hand, this
      peculiarity, which is entirely unknown in the old, long-settled
      capitalist countries of Europe, serves in America tocover
      upthe expropriation of the small farmers—a process
      already under way in the settled and most industrialized parts
      of the country.

Letus take the North. We get the following picture:

Wesee not only a relative reduction in the number of owners,
      not only a decline in their proportion of the total number of
      farmers, etc., but even anabsolute decreasein the
      number of owners, against a background of growing production in
      the main section of the U.S.A., which embraces 60% of the
      country’s improved acreage!

Itshould, besides, be borne in mind that in one of the four
      divisions making up the North, namely, the West North Central,the allotment of homesteads continues to this very day,
      and that 54 million acres were allotted in the 10 years from
      1901 to 1910.

Thetendency of capitalism to expropriate small-scale
      agriculture is so strong that the American “North” shows anabsolute decreasein the number of landowners,in
      spite ofthe distribution of tens of millions of acres of
      unoccupied, free land.

Onlytwo factors still serve to paralyze this tendency in the
      U.S.A.: (1) the existence of the still unparcelled slave-holding
      plantations in the South, with its oppressed and downtrodden
      Negro population; and (2) the fact that the West is still partly
      unsettled. Both these factors tend to widen the future base of
      capitalism, and so prepare the conditions for its even more
      extensive and more rapid development. The sharpening of
      contradictions and the displacement of small-scale production
      are not removed but are transferred to a larger arena. The
      capitalist fire appears to be “damped down”—but at the
      price of an even greater accumulation of new and more
      inflammable material.

Furthermore,on the question of the expropriation of small-scale
      agriculture, we have the returns for the number of farms owning
      livestock. Here are the figures for the U.S.A.

Thesefigures show, on the whole, a reduction in the number of
      owners in proportion to the total number of farmers. The
      increase in the percentage of those who owned dairy cows was
      smaller than the drop in the percentage of those who owned
      horses.

Letus now examine the figures for farms grouped in relation to
      the two major kinds of livestock.

Wefind that the greatest increase was in the number of small
      farms with dairy cows, then came the latifundia, and then the
      medium-size farms. There was a decrease in thepercentage of
      farms reporting dairy cows among the big owners, with 500 to 999
      acres of land.

Onthe whole, this seems to indicate a gain for small-scale
      agriculture. Let us recall, however, that in farming the
      ownership of dairy cattle has a twofold significance: on the one
      hand, it may generally indicate a higher living standard and
      better conditions of nutrition. On the other hand, it
      signifies—and rather more frequently—a development of
      one branch of commercial farming and cattle-breeding: the
      production of milk for the market in the towns and industrial
      centers. We saw above that farms of this type, the “dairy”
      farms, were classified by American statisticians under a special
      head, according to the principal source of income. A
      characteristic of this group is that it has asmaller-than-average total and improved acreage, but agreater-than-average value of output, and adouble-the-averageemployment of hired labour per acre. The increasing importance
      of small farms in dairy farming may simply mean—and most
      likely does mean—a growth ofcapitalistdairy
      farms of the type described, on small tracts of land. For the
      sake of comparison here are some figures on theconcentrationof dairy cattle in America:

Wefind that the North, which is richest of all in dairy cattle,
      also showed the greatest increase in wealth. Here is a
      distribution of this increase among the groups:

Themore rapid growth in thenumberof small farms with
      dairy cattle did not prevent its more rapidconcentrationin the large enterprises.

Letus now turn to the figures on the number of farms reporting
      horses. This information about draught animals is an indication
      of the general pattern of farming and not of any special branch
      of commercial farming.

Wefind that as we go down the size-group scale there is a
      rising number of farms not reporting horses. With the exception
      of the smallest farms (under 20 acres) which, as we know,
      include a comparatively greater number of capitalistic farms
      than the neighboring groups, we observe a rapid decrease in the
      number of horseless farms and a much slower increase in their
      number. The use of steam ploughs and other engines on the rich
      farms may partly compensate for the reduction in draught
      animals, but such an assumption is out of the question for the
      mass of the poorer farms.

Finally,the growth of expropriation is also evident from the
      returns on the number of mortgaged farms:

Thepercentage of mortgaged farms is on a steady increase in all
      sections, and it is highest in the most populous industrialized
      and capitalist North. American statisticians point out (Vol. V,
      p. 159) that the growth in the number of mortgagedfarms in the
      South is probably due to the “parceling out” of the plantations,
      which are sold in lots to Negro and white farmers, who pay only
      a part of the purchase price, the rest being covered by a
      mortgage on the property. Consequently a peculiarbuying-up
      operationis under way in the slave-holding South. Let us
      note that in 1910 Negroes in the U.S.A. owned only 920,883
      farms, i.e., 14.5% of the total; between 1900 and 1910, the
      number of white farms increased 9.5%, and that of Negro farms,
      twice as fast—19.6%. The Negro urge to emancipation from
      the “plantation owners” half a century after the “victory” over
      the slave-owners is still marked by an exceptional intensity.

TheAmerican statisticians also point out that the mortgaging of
      a farm does not always indicate lack of prosperity; it is
      sometimes a way of obtaining capital for land improvement; and
      the like. This is indisputable, but this indisputable
      observation should not conceal the fact—as is much too
      often the case with bourgeois economists—that only a
      well-to-do minority are in a position to obtain capital for
      improvements, etc., in this way, and to employ it productively;
      the majority are further impoverished and fall into the clutches
      of finance capital assuming this particular form.

Researcherscould—and should—have paid much more
      attention to the dependence of farmers on finance capital. But
      although this aspect of the matter is immensely important, it
      has remained in the background.

Thegrowth in the number of mortgaged farms in any case means
      that the actual control over them is transferred to the
      capitalists. It stands to reason that apart from officially
      recorded and notarized mortgages, a considerable number of farms
      are steeped in private debt, which is not covered by strict
      legal instruments and is not recorded by the census.

[1]Interpolationsin square brackets (within passages quoted by Lenin) have
been introduced by Lenin, unless otherwise indicated.—Ed.